Impunity prevails

The two big parties of the government coalition are "La U" and the conservative party. From these parties come most of the members of parliament who have been investigated (and in many cases already convicted) for collaboration with paramilitary groups. These are the parapoliticos, or paracos. Of the 2006-10 parliament with in all 268 members, 85 are in this group. 32%! That is an impressive criminality rate – and most probably several guilty have escaped from being investigated. Imagine that, in Denmark or Sweden: more than 60 Danish members of parliament found guilty of paramilitary collaboration or corruption! Or more than 100 in Sweden!

One might believe (hope) that the electorate would punish these parties at the earliest opportunity. No so in Colombia. The two parties increased their number of seats in parliament. During the months before elections a new party PIN took care of the most dubious candidates, those that were not permitted to run for the conservatives or for "La U". PIN is often called the party of the shadows; for more about PIN, see a previous blogpost. Don't expect that the conservatives of "La U" will keep distance to PIN. On the contrary, all three parties will certainly collaborate and thus obtain a majority in both houses of the parliament.

The present government is often characterised as "centre-right". If the next president will belong to one of the majority parties, the government will probably be better described as "right-extreme right".

The counting of votes in yesterday's presidential preliminaries has still not finished. In the conservative party it will be a close run between "Uribito" Arias and Noemí Samín. Recounting is to be done in Bogotá and final results can be expected by the end of the week.